It was not now all law, as it used to be.

In the drawer of the old piece of furniture which stood just at the right hand of his own arm-chair there were various books hidden away, which he was sometimes ashamed to have seen by his clients,--poetry and novels and even fairy tales.

For there was nothing Mr.Wharton could not read in his chambers, though there was nothing that he could read in his own house.

He had a large pleasant room in which to sit, looking out from the ground floor of Stone Buildings on to the gardens belonging to the Inn,--and here, in the centre of the metropolis, but in perfect quiet as far as the outside world was concerned, he had lived and still lived his life.
At about noon on the day following that on which Lopez had made his sudden swoop on Mr.Parker and had then dined with Everett Wharton, he called at Stone Buildings and was shown into the lawyer's room.
His quick eye at once discovered the book which Mr.Wharton half hid away, and saw upon it Mr.Mudie's suspicious ticket.

Barristers certainly never get their law books from Mudie, and Lopez at once knew that his hoped-for father-in-law had been reading a novel.